To the Romance Genre: I've Always Loved You.

I'm sorry I couldn't admit it.

Death to Stock

“Oh, I don’t really like the romance genre. It’s not really for me.” When did I start saying this?

When I think back through my life, from Disney princesses to The Hunger Games, I was partial to a romance plot. I paged through (and drooled over) Twilight in middle school like my life depended on it; I couldn’t breathe when Tris touched Four’s tattoos in Divergent. I read every Sara Dessen book like it was my religion and cried at the ends of The Notebook and The Last Song — both the books and the movies. The Fault in Our Stars altered my brain chemistry at 15 years old. I was enamoured, in love, and, well, horny. And it was a wonderful, hormone-filled time of my life, if not a bit dramatic.

And then suddenly, I stopped engaging with romance altogether. All the feet-kicking joy, giddiness, and fun that I got from romantic media just seemed to have dissipated.

I didn’t know it at the time, but during those formative years of high school, something was shifting within me. Twenty-sixteen was the year I got my driver’s license, it was the year I started to see how politics could affect real people — even if I wasn’t sure what to do with that information yet — it was the year I threw myself into theatre for the first time and the year I fell in love with the man who is now my husband. And he loved (and loves) me better than so many of the men in the media that I thought was romantic.

And in the midst of all of that, the romance genre just didn’t feel… good … anymore.

Death to Stock

Fast forward to college and I deepened my understanding of the world. I started asking questions that I was always too scared to even let myself think: Why can’t I have sex before marriage? Why are women so often represented through the male gaze in media? Why aren’t there more female directors? Am I attracted to more than just men? What does marriage mean, really? How do I want to exist in the world?

It manifested itself as a crippling anxiety, if I’m being honest. Trying to understand the world so much all at once is terrifying and overwhelming.

Reading, watching, engaging with the romance genre wasn’t even on the table. I kind of threw it out of my mind entirely, like I threw away liking the color pink and wearing makeup.

But… I wasn’t happy.

And in retrospect, I was dealing with a lot of internalized misogyny from taking “feminism” down a weird path that didn’t actually respect or give a shit about women.

We live and learn.

I’ll never forget the winter break I spent watching Bridgerton in bed, crocheting and snacking and obsessing for hours on end. Then watching Reign, which thankfully had so many more seasons (!). The rabbit hole was glorious. And, for a moment, romance was back.

I felt euphoric.

But if someone recommended a romance novel to me, I’d say “Nah, not really my thing.” And when the shows ended, that’s where that ended. The joy-induced euphoria ended too.

Somewhere around when I binged Bridgerton, I came out as bisexual for the first time to my now-husband, then-boyfriend. It took me a few years to really understand my sexuality, embrace it, untangle it from the internalized homophobia and fear that I built up in my mind. And being someone who grew up in the church only made it more complicated; my relationship with sex was already messy from that, and now I was adding in this huge identity-altering piece of it. It was a lot.

Reading and watching romance made me anxious because it made me have to look head on at the feelings I wasn’t ready to deal with. So I wrote off the genre entirely.

Then I read Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue. I felt a shift again. Small, but important. It was a small seed of confidence in my bisexuality — and sexuality generally, for that matter — that made me feel seen and understood, even if for a moment. Then I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney and All This Could Be Different by Sara Thankam Mathews. And then I read Greedy by Jen Winston, affectionately known as the “bisexual bible.” I was too scared to put it on my Goodreads because I wasn’t “out” yet but reading it, I felt seen and validated and part of a community, even if I couldn’t relate to a lot of her stories that much. I felt bisexual, and I felt a glimmer of pride. Then I read Old Enough by Haley Jakobson, and I felt seen again. Reading became a safe space for me to explore my queerness.

But I was still grappling with my issues with traditional gender norms and unhealthy dynamics and poor communication and heteronormativity in the romance genre. I didn’t fully see these queer books as romance because they felt so different than my understanding of romance at the time. So much of my viewpoint of romance centered the same story over and over again. I knew I wanted more from the genre, but I didn’t understand yet that it was possible, and that I was already engaging with it.

Then I read Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. I spent an entire winter break reading the entire series and watching the tv show, basking in the pure queer joy radiating from it. It was beautiful.

I felt like a teenager again.

Like any good second-chance romance, I wasn’t ready to admit that I loved romance again yet, but I was starting to open up to the possibility. I picked up the first book from 831 Stories, Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff, and I absolutely devoured it. Not queer, but a celebrity romance? A powerful female protagonist? Yes, please. I was obsessed.

I felt like a teenager again.

And I was starting to feel like romance was more than how I was defining it. Like it was more than the traditional values bullshit that I wanted nothing to do with.

Death to Stock

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with my therapist about my recent obsession with Heated Rivalry. (At the time, she hadn’t heard of it, but I wonder how many people have mentioned it since…) “I feel like a teenager again!” I told her, excited and rambling. I told her, well, the last time I felt this way was actually when I read Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia this summer, and Big Fan last year, and Heartstopper, and Red, White, and Royal Blue, oh and of course whenever I watch Bridgerton.

Then it hit me. Oh my god, it hit me like a third-act conflict.

When I was a teenager was the last time I let myself truly enjoy, luxuriate in, obsess over the romance genre without pulling myself out of it when I got too invested.

Maybe… maybe I liked romance this whole time?

I just didn’t like the rigid idea of romance that I knew.

I finally found romance media that doesn’t put women in boxes, doesn’t ask me to change who I am, doesn’t ask me to fit into traditional, heteronormative dynamics. The stories that helped me re-fall in love with the genre are expansive and inclusive and ask us to look at ourselves and the world and what love looks like when two people are equals and bring their full selves to the relationship.

So, romance, I love you. There, I said it. I am in love with all your beautiful, real love stories that make us feel seen and powerful and sexy and creative. You bring joy to dark times and make me kick my feet giggling and bite my lip in anticipation. You have your flaws. I don’t like all of your tropes and I certainly don’t like it when you reinforce stereotypes and toxic dynamics and traditional heteronormativity.

But oh god, when you’re good, romance, you’re good.

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